Chicago Tribune Media Group has offered buyouts to editorial employees of its 32 suburban Pioneer Press weekly newspapers, a company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

Eligible employees have until February 16 to apply for buyouts, which include enhanced severance and extended health insurance benefits. Not all who opt in may be accepted.

Pioneer Press

The latest offer comes less than three months after Tribune Publishing finalized a voluntary separation program that resulted in a 7 percent reduction in its workforce companywide. Under the cost-cutting plan, more than 40 Chicago Tribune newsroom staffers left at the end of 2015.

That program had not been not available to union employees, including an estimated 22 reporters and editors at Pioneer Press, who are represented by the Chicago News Guild.

The buyout offer was extended to editorial employees of Pioneer Press as well Lake County News-Sun and Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune at the request of the union, according to a source close to the company. "This was not an operational decision by management," the source said.

Craig Rosenbaum, executive director of the Chicago News Guild, declined to comment.